


Two Ravens In The Old Oak Tree

by skyline



Category: Big Time Rush
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-17
Updated: 2011-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-07 09:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/429532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he was twenty two, he found a four leaf clover on the same day that James’s album went platinum. He thought it was a sign.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Ravens In The Old Oak Tree

Carlos was superstitious. And not about normal things, like spilled salt or black cats or opening umbrellas indoors. He had this thing, where he thought that the universe gave people _signs_. He made half of his choices based off of whether a blue truck sped past him on the highway or a sun shower tore open the sky.  
  
Kendall never really bought into any of it. He wasn’t raised to believe that doing things in odd numbers was somehow luckier than doing it evenly, or that a cracked mirror was going to give him seven years of hell. He’d always been practical.   
  
Until love changed everything.   
  
Kendall had heard people say that, like love was some kind of all powerful cosmic force that could move mountains and dry up oceans. He didn’t really get it until it happened to him. And the weirdest part was, he didn’t even see it coming. It completely blindsided him.   
  
He spent eighteen years of his life blissfully unaware that the thing he felt for James was anything more than a mix of close friendship, competitiveness, and a subtle appreciation for good looks. Right up until the two of them downed a bottle of vodka on the roof of the Palmwoods, and he was faced with James, a little bit teary eyed and more than a little bit beautiful saying, “I can’t do this. I love you.”   
  
And Kendall had found himself saying, “I love you too,” before he even had time to realize it was true. That he didn’t mean it the same way he did when he said those words to his mom or Katie or Carlos or Logan.   
  
Ever since that moment, Kendall had devoted himself to loving James, whole heartedly. Because once he knew, why would he ever want to let that go?   
  
Turned out, James didn’t plan on giving him a choice.   
  
They got in this argument. It was awful.   
  
James was about to head off on his first solo tour. Kendall wanted to come with him, but he couldn’t. He had his own thing now, post BTR. He had college and hockey and grades to keep up with. He tried to tell James that he knew he had to go, but that he was just- sad about it. That’s it. He just wanted to tell James he was going to miss him.   
  
James exploded. Somehow they ended up screaming their heads off.   
  
“You don’t get it. I just don’t like being away from you,” he screamed. And James didn’t get it. He couldn’t get it. He’d grown up in a family where his parents did everything they could to be apart, even before the divorce. James had been traded back and forth like a bartering chip between them. And Kendall told him that, trying to help him see that the way they’d grown up was different.   
  
That the way they felt about _being alone_ was different.   
  
Kendall never figured out where he went wrong; which word had been a misstep. All he knew was that James started shouting at him, “What would you know? At least my dad didn’t leave.”  
  
Kendall’s heart felt like lead in his chest, and for a moment; just a second, he hated James. And James must have seen it in his eyes.   
  
“You’re right,” James barreled on, “I don’t understand your drama. I don’t understand why you won’t just- act like a normal human being with people outside of the band. I don’t understand why you won’t just _let me go_.”  
  
James was breathing hard, but his voice had cut off. He’d stopped yelling, but the words he’d said were still heavy in the air. Because he hadn’t meant let him go _on tour_.   
  
“What?” Kendall asked, his voice barely a croak. “That’s what you want?”  
  
“I- yeah. I guess,” James said, and he nibbled his lip, for the first time since the fight began looking uncertain.   
  
Kendall searched his face, searched his eyes for some kind of sign that he wasn’t serious.   
  
But then James looked away. He said, “I don’t want to be with you anymore. We’re not happy.”  
  
 _Liar_ , Kendall thought.   
  
“We haven’t been happy for a long time.”  
  
 _Liar_. Where was Kendall for this stretch of time? Because he didn’t remember an absence of happiness. They argued, but- it was never so awful that they didn’t make up within a day or two. Never. Not once.   
  
He tried to think back, to remember if there was something he’d missed. To remember if James had ever seemed anything less than content.   
  
There was nothing.   
  
When he looked at James, there was nothing. James shoved his hands in his pockets, rueful. He walked away. He didn’t even say goodbye. And then it was over.   
  
Kendall didn’t remember anything ever hurting so badly.   
  
Not even the day his dad left.   


\---

  
Sometimes, Kendall would be thinking about James for no reason. It would be a lazy Sunday, and the things he missed most about the boy were on his mind. And then, like magic, James would call. For the first time in his life, Kendall thought those little psychic flashes had to _mean something_ , even if their conversations were terse messages that didn’t mean anything at all.   


  
\---

  
On Kendall’s twenty first birthday, he’s turning over a white v-neck shirt he’d stolen from James in his hands. At that exact minute, James texts him.   
  
_Happy Birthday_.   
  
Kendall knows it’s stupid, but. It has to mean something.   


  
\---

  
Later that same year, a Pakistani fortune teller at a fireman’s fair told him that he was already married to his soul mate. She told him the exact date the blessed ceremony occurred, and it was a night that Kendall remembered so clearly, James’s face and a haze of vodka.   
  
He didn’t believe in this fortune telling shit, but the woman was using star charts and the time of his birth and all this other freaky real life data. She had no way of knowing the date of the first time that James told him that he was loved. No way.   
  
She couldn’t have known.   
  
So Kendall decided to believe. Kendall decided to wait.   


  
\---

  
When he was twenty two, he found a four leaf clover on the same day that James’s album went platinum. He thought it was a sign.  
  
So he waited.   


\---

  
He’d see James in a crowd, or a boy who looked just like James, and Kendall would wonder if the heavens were taunting him.   
  
It always happened. He wouldn’t have James on his mind at all, and then some random stranger would call out a name. It was always _James_. Always.   


  
\---

  
As a joke, when he turned twenty three, Kendall let Carlos persuade him to get his tarot cards read. He was told that his true love would return. Maybe the woman just saw the desperation in his eyes.   
  
But maybe not.   
  
So he waited.   


  
\---

  
Kendall was twenty five when he moved back to Minnesota. It was the warmest winter the state had seen in years, but he told himself, “If it snows, James will come back. If it even flurries, James will come back.”  
  
He said the words over and over like a prayer.   
  
It snowed that night.   
  
James didn’t come back.   


  
\---

  
When he turned twenty six, Kendall decided to stop believing in signs.  



End file.
